At school he studies the human body: aorta, valve, muscle, vein. At home he redesigns it out of cardboard and twine until it looks like a coat he might hang on a hook with other missing coats.

From The Game of Boxes by Catherine Barnett. Copyright © 2012 by Catherine Barnett. Published by Graywolf Press. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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Poems by This Author

Chorus by Catherine Barnett So who mothers the mothers Living Room Altar by Catherine Barnett Except for the shirt pulled from the ocean, Providence by Catherine Barnett This evening I shared a cab with a priest Sojourn by Catherine Barnett My son took a picture of me Sweet Double, Talk-Talk [iv.] by Catherine Barnett I know agape means both dumbly

Further Reading

Poems about the Body A Hand by Jane Hirshfield After tagging the dust your body is made of by Jen Tynes Anatomy by Monica Ferrell Bodyweight by Matthew Schwartz Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams For the Man with the Erection Lasting More than Four Hours by John Hodgen Ghost in the Land of Skeletons by Christopher Kennedy Guessing My Death [excerpt] by CAConrad homage to my hips by Lucille Clifton Human Atlas by Marianne Boruch I Sing the Body Electric by Walt Whitman In the Surgical Theatre by Dana Levin Slight Tremor by Linda Gregerson The Tongue by Chris Martin